Royal Style thread: part 2

[QueenOfTheAndals]

As requested!

mrsshadenfreude what was Stephanie like? And her mum? She lost her just prior to the wedding g I think

I guess Clionba quite a few are RC so would be immediately put if the running given our predjudicial system. Most of the Protestant ones are too young. Doesn't explain why no one went for Madeleine though! She's so beautiful. Heh maybe they just don't like each other

I've heard there was talk about Charles and Caroline being a potential match back in the 70s but of course the religion thing would've been a barrier. The Camilla thing probably wouldn't have helped either...

There was a clip doing the rounds a few months ago of Queen Letizia and Queen Sofia having a row over posing for a photographer with her grandchildren. Queen Letizia is rumoured to be a battle axe. There must be undercurrents in all these relationships which are then manipulated to portray happy family life.

I saw that film of Letizia and Sofía and the daughters. A spat in a church! Felipe intervened, still a bit unpleasant.

Swedish royalists are a bit sniffy about the British royals snubbing our events, yes. It was very popular when William and Kate came for a visit this winter (was it this winter?). But didn't quite make up for the fact that no-one (of importance ) ) came to Victoria's wedding (or either of the other ones). Edward and Sophie came but they weren't the real hotshots were they haha. Sniffy articles about how they're related and all but still the british RF keep to themselves.

Another interesting thing about the current set of continental queen consorts is that most of them are either the first consort to be born in the country that they're queen of or, like the Netherlands, the country has never had a native-born consort.

Prince Daniel will be the first Swedish born consort in a very long time.

I also wondered about why more senior royals did not attend Victoria's wedding, considering that she is the future queen. Also Sylvia's immediate predecessor as Queen consort was Lady Louise Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh's aunt.

More senior British royals, I meant.

The Swedish royals are probably unique in that they descend from an elected king.

My fascination with the Swedish royal family began when, as a young teen, I read the historical novel Desiree by Anne-Marie Selinko. It's the story of Desiree Clary, the daughter of a French silk merchant, who was the wife of that elected king, Jean-Baptist Bernadotte. Fairly modest beginnings for the house of Bernadotte although they married into several much older royal houses along the way to the 20th Century.

And it's gone full circle now, as none of the king's children have married anyone remotely royal!

I remember the film Desiree - Jean Simmons and Marlon Brando, I think.

I read that book too! Gave me a HEAVILY romanticized idea of Swedish history, let me tell you.

I think the Greeks elected their royal house founder too, William of Denmark who ruled as George I of Greece.

The Norweigans elected the king that founded their current ruling house, too.

Yes and the Danes and Norwegians too, come to think of it. But those they chose were still princes, the Bernadottes are descended from one of Napoleon's marshalls.

Despite Prince Philip being nicknamed Phil the Greek, he actually doesn't have a drop of Greek blood in him!

And that Norwegian king had also been a Danish prince.

Yes, I think technically Philip is of the Royal Danish House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. I imagine his mother's House of Battenberg was much easier to Anglicise.

I remember the remark attributed to old Queen Mary, on the news of Philip and Elizabeth's engagement "He's the kind of Greek I like, being one tenth Danish and nine tenths German"!

Certainly prince Philip looked very Scandi as a young man with his white-blond hair and blue eyes - hardly your average Greek. Hard to imagine it now but he was quite the looker in his day!

He was! Quite the Aryan. His four sisters were all married to German officers, at least two of whom were Nazis. Interesting that none were invited to the wedding!
The sister that was killed in the plane crash was given quite the Nazi send off of you look at the pictures. It must have been difficult for Philip when he was in the RN.

Remember the "Prince Philip attended NAZI FUNERAL!" headlines in the Sun a few years ago? It was his sisters funeral, what did they expect him to do?? That sister died rather horribly though, it was very tragic.

Philip really had the strangest childhood and youth - it's surprising he didn't end up totally fucked up. But he did all right in the end!

Plus, he was only a teenager! Still at Gordonstoun and mourning his favourite sister. None of the horrors of the regime were clear at the time, either. To portray him as complicit was quite wrong.

The incident was covered in an episode in season 2 of The Crown. It was very affecting as it also covered how miserable Charles was at Gordenstoun.